Scent Memory
by cellardoor3
Summary: Remus lives in a world made of partial-memory and fantasy.


Remus lies on his front and contemplates the money splayed in his hands. It covers his mouth and nose like a Japanese Geisha fan. He thinks it's just enough, perhaps, to manage on. True, he might have to go without heat for a bit, but he has always been warm-blooded despite his slight frame, and he has heard a man can go five days without eating and survive. With this thought in mind, Remus pulls himself up slowly, lungs protesting even under such a small effort. He feels as if he could collapse on the mattress again and sleep for hours. He could sleep forever really, even if his dreams are filled with bloody smiles and painful, hysterical laughter.  
  
Stepping outside, Remus feels the cold air sting the cuts on his face. Shaving has been a struggle lately, but it doesn't matter much anymore. He has no one to impress. Remus has stopped feeling the noticeable absence of a coat and the shock of his toes cold in the draft through ragged shoes. He does notice, however, the shortness of his trousers, and the gaping sharpness of the bones in his ankles. It reminds him of when he was a teenager. Sirius and his pseudo-brother were 'sprouting like weeds,' as the old women in Hogsmeade who always knew the purebloods liked to say. Still, James had loved his muggle jeans too much to let bare, bony ankles get in the way of his wearing them. Not much ever got in the way of James getting what he wanted.  
  
Remus realizes he has walked a great distance. By his surroundings, he reckons it to be about three blocks. It's not strange anymore for Remus to find himself someplace else without knowing how he came to be there, for he has been living lately in a world made of half-memory and half-fantasy. Reality only comes in when it begs by way of physical pain.  
  
Remus comes to the stand where an Asian woman sells oranges and remembers such a time. His stomach was so empty it had begun to feed on itself, and Remus had experienced a pain so foreign, so singularly terrifying that he had been pushed to commit petty theft. He can't have been very good at it, but maybe the woman took pity because he had devoured the fruit in mere moments. Remus was never sure, even now, whether it was the speed at which he'd eaten or the shame that made him vomit orange mixed with red just a block down from the woman's tiny, ramshackle cart.  
  
Still, he gets by most days, working at a dock when they're low on employees (during Christmas holidays and the like). He helps to heft crate after crate of, strangely enough, teacups--all daintily painted with little yellow and blue flowers. They are countless in number, and after a while, Remus feels as if he is dead and stuck in limbo, forced into an eternity of shipping porcelain dinner-wear in the land of Dis. He does not know who purchases such a large amount, but as he works, he imagines a huge mansion stacked full of teacups along with Persian carpeting and libraries full of Bryon and Wilde and Moby Dick. Remus despises Moby Dick, but it seems to be a required part of having one's own library. He remembers that Peter loved the novel and had only let Remus borrow it under oath of death.  
  
Finally, he reaches his destination and stands in front, rubbing his arms. A chill has settled over the town, and he can tell a snowstorm is on its way. Remus has instinct about that sort of thing. Rather like a dog.  
  
He swallows and walks inside the tobacco shop, head hung low, ragged, knife-cut hair scratching his ears. He goes slowly to the counter where the man has his brand already waiting, and digs deep in vast pockets. Remus can feel the bone in his knobby knee while he rummages and pulls out the multicolored, muggle paper. Wordlessly, he puts the money on the counter. He prays the man will remember the sign on the front window proclaiming, "Free Matches With Purchase!" because he has neither the energy nor the courage to ask for them. The man never forgets and this time is no exception.  
  
"D'ja want a bag," he asks through chewing tobacco and gapped teeth.  
  
Remus shakes his head and leaves.  
  
His walk home is a swift one, for while he hungers for the twisting smoke, he does not want to waste it on stifling air. The cold has gotten colder and Remus tries to ignore his shivering as well as the memory of a shivering Lily in the lake, grinning and yelling through wet hair, "James Potter you won't get away with this!"  
  
Remus fumbles with his lone key and leans against the door only to find it open. He trips inside, scraping his wrist on the wall.  
  
Disjointed, yet somehow focused, he walks around the flat, closing and securing all the windows. He goes to the bedroom and opens his closet. It is a dirty, nasty room, but it is also the smallest so Remus steps inside and encloses himself in blackness.  
  
He sits on the bare floor, surveying a crack of light left under the oak, and pulls off his shirt, stuffing it into the gap until all air and light is snuffed out. He takes off his shoes. Then Remus digs into those endless pockets and fishes out his cigarettes. He holds the pack in shaking hands almost reverently, regarding it through the dark. After a moment, he pulls out a stick and places the box in his lap. Remus holds the matches between his thumb and forefinger, opens them, drags the head across the ruff. It takes a few tries before fire flares up, making him blink. Then he holds the light to the cigarette until his fingers turn black. He shakes the match out. A moment passes while Remus seems to struggle with something. Then he places the clean, white length to chapped lips. He inhales; exhales. Tears squeeze out of his eyes, and he coughs a bit.  
  
Finally, the smell reaches him.  
  
Sirius, sitting on a windowsill, turning to him. Smiling, saying  
  
"Fancy a fag, Moony?"  
  
Remus speaks it aloud as smoke fills the closet like London fog.  
  
/The smell, oh gods!/  
  
And he weeps for the guilt because the object between his fingers is more important than the light, the heat, food, water, his very life. It is more important than Lily and James and their gruesome deaths, Harry's infant wail at their funeral. More important than Peter's cold body ten feet under a meager grave. Remus needs the smell because he is weak, because he is nothing. He needs it because it is all he has left of Sirius, whom he loves and clings to like suffering. Ashes are falling like burning snowflakes onto his feet. The smoke is seeping into his skin, making his cheeks more grey than his rapidly thinning hair, and he is sobbing, lungs gasping and heaving, tears filling the hollows of his face, hands open, scratching the floorboards, rubbing his body as if he is covered in filth. They search desperately for something, /someone,/ who will never be within his reach.  
  
/Fancy a fag, Moony?/  
  
Outside the snow falls, and Remus lights another cigarette.


End file.
